Dr. Tal Korem

Tal Korem, PhD, has been named a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, a fellowship that supports leading early-career researchers in science and technology. 

Dr. Korem is an assistant professor of systems biology with a joint appointment in obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, and a faculty member of the Program for Mathematical Genomics . As a global scholar, he is joining CIFAR’s Humans and the Microbiome research program, where his work will focus on harnessing human microbial communities to identify and develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

CIFAR’s  Azrieli Global Scholars program supports its fellows through funding and mentorship, emphasizing essential network and professional skills development. The scholars join CIFAR research programs for a two-year period where they collaborate with fellows and brainstorm new approaches to pressing science and technology problems. Research topics are diverse, ranging from bio-solar energy and visual consciousness to engineered proteins and the immune system. 

Dr. Korem is one of 14 researchers out of an applicant pool of 217 selected by the Canadian-based nonprofit organization. This year’s cohort represents citizenship in eight countries and appointments in institutions from Canada, the U.S.,  Israel, Australia, the Netherlands, and Spain.

-Melanie A. Farmer

Dr. Harris Wang is lead PI on a new DARPA-funded project developing novel therapies to counter effects of high-dose ionizing radiation.

Harris Wang, PhD, assistant professor of systems biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center , is leading a team of experts in radiation research, CRISPR-Cas technologies, and drug delivery on an innovative new project announced June 27 funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) . The up to $9.5M project focuses on pursuing a therapy to protect the body from the effects of high-dose ionizing radiation, and is part of DARPA's initiative to fund research into new strategies to combat public health and national security threats.

In humans, acute radiation syndrome primarily affects stem cells in the blood and gut, yet existing treatments only help to regenerate blood cells, and only with limited effect. There is no possibility for prophylactic administration of these drugs, and most must be delivered immediately following radiation exposure to provide any benefit. There are no existing medical countermeasures for radiation damage to the gut.

The Columbia team aims to develop an orally delivered programmable gene modulator therapeutic. The multimodal treatment the team envisions would take hold in both the gut and liver, triggering protection and regeneration of intestinal cells, while also inducing liver cells to produce protective cues that trigger the regeneration of blood cells in bone marrow.

Chaolin Zhang, PhD, associate professor of systems biology

A new study by researchers in Dr. Chaolin Zhang’s lab at Columbia’s Department of Systems Biology details a novel computational method that models how RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) recognize specific sites in the target RNA transcripts, precisely and accurately. The researchers’ findings include identification of entirely new motifs (RNA sequence patterns), and their research in complex RNA regulation contributes to our understanding of the molecular basis of disease and conditions, and down the road, could aid in the development of targeted therapies. 

The study, led by Dr. Zhang, associate professor of systems biology, with senior co-authors Suying Bao, PhD, and Huijuan Feng, PhD, appears today in Molecular Cell. 

RNA has traditionally been considered mere “messengers” that transfer genetic information from DNA to proteins that ultimately carry out cellular functions. However, it is now increasingly appreciated that RNA can be tightly regulated to control gene expression and diversity protein products. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are at the center of such regulation, with important roles in many cellular processes, including cell function, transport, and location. Gaining mechanistic insights of the binding specificity of RBPs in a genome-wide scale helps advance our knowledge of gene regulation.

“RNA-binding proteins are crucial for gene expression,” says Dr. Feng, coauthor of the study and post-doctoral research scientist in the Zhang lab. “RNA is heavily regulated, and when this regulation goes wrong, instabilities or disease could occur.”  

New research by Laura Landweber, PhD, who has joint appointments in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, the Department of Systems Biology and the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, is being featured by Columbia Univeristy Iriving Medical Center Newsroom.

As reported, a new study of a single-celled eukaryote with 16,000 tiny chromosomes may shed light on a recently discovered feature of the human genome.

Methyladenine, or 6mA—a modification of DNA common in Oxytricha trifallax—has only recently been found in multicellular organisms, with some studies suggesting a role in human disease and development.

Finding the enzymes that lay down the methyl marks will be critical to understanding what 6mA is doing in Oxytricha and other organisms, but the enzymes have been difficult to identify.

The new research—to be published in the June 13 issue of Cell—reveals how 6mA marks are made to the Oxytricha genome and suggests why the enzymes have been hard to find.

Read more about the Oxytricha genome and the Landweber lab’s new insights into 6mA and its potential role in human diseases.

Dr. Landweber has been studying Oxytricha for two decades and previously uncovered its 16,000 chromosomes. (See related Faculty Q+A and video.)

Peter Sims, PhD

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research has awarded Peter Sims , PhD, an Emerging Leader Award and will support his work to advance a novel use of single-cell RNA sequencing to develop brain cancer treatments. Dr. Sims, assistant professor of systems biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, is one of just eight recipients of the inaugural grant, given to promising early career scientists for projects aimed at substantially unmet needs in cancer risk prediction, prevention, detection and treatment. 

Dr. Sims is an early contributor to the emerging field of large-scale single-cell RNA sequencing, which has made it possible to analyze tens of thousands of cells while simultaneously obtaining imaging and genomic data from each individual cell. He will be using this approach to improve patient-derived models of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an aggressive form of cancer that invades the brain, making complete resection difficult. In other words, making it extremely difficult in surgery to remove all cancerous cells from the brain. To date, drug therapies for this type of aggressive brain cancer have had limited success, partly because of the heterogeneity of these tumors. Furthermore,  current patient-derived models for researching glioblastoma do not fully recapitulate the cellular diversity of tumor cells that are present in the tumor, so it is extremely challenging to classify those cells in order to match them with the drug therapies that work. 

Indeed, there is a critical need to better characterize and understand GBM. Dr. Sims has collaborated with several brain tumor experts in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center , including Drs. Peter Canoll, Jeffrey Bruce, Antonio Iavarone and Anna Lasorella to advance single-cell genomic approaches to characterizing this disease. Approaching this problem at the single cell level could result in development of novel treatments that  prioritize and identify the specific drug therapies that may actually work on diminishing these tumor cells. The ultimate goal is to attain better predictions of therapeutic efficacy.